


What Do I Call You Now

by pen_owo



Category: K-pop, 소녀시대 | Girls' Generation | SNSD
Genre: Angst I guess, Gen, Highly recommend and not just because I'm a sone, I mean we are talking about some of GG's most (im)famous moments, based on Taeyeon's new song What Do I Call You, basically an exploration of Taengsic's relationship, great song BTW, relationship exploration, the EP was genuinely really good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:20:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29358609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pen_owo/pseuds/pen_owo
Summary: How Taeyeon saved Jessica’s phone number over the years.ORThree times Taeyeon needed to hear those three words one time she said them.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	What Do I Call You Now

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Taeyeon's title track from her newest EP What Do I Call You

_Jung Jessica_

When the nine of them exchanged numbers in the tiny living room of their dorm, Taeyeon really didn’t think much of it. While Tiffany and Yoona slaved over what nickname they should give to each member, Taeyeon merely saved each of them as who they were.

Jung Jessica. Lee Sunny. Hwang Tiffany. Kim Hyoyeon. Kwon Yuri. Soo Sooyoung. Im Yoona. Seo Juhyun.

Kim Taeyeon.

_Jessica_

There’s a crushing silence as they exit the stage and the next song begins, Sooyoung and Sunny fighting back tears as Yoona and Seohyun wrap their arms around each other, Hyoyeon hovering over them protectively. Yuri and Tiffany are nowhere to be found, likely having run back to their waiting room in an attempt to cry freely.

From the corner of her eyes, Taeyeon could see the colors lighting up the dark arena and it made her angry but there was nothing she could do about it.

Shuffling back to their waiting room, she watches as her fellow members break down: Tiffany and Sunny bawling their eyes out, Hyoyeon and Sooyoung biting their lips to silence their whimpers, Yoona curling into Seohyun and Yuri staring at her reflection blankly, letting her makeup run down her face. They could hear the roar of the crowd and the cheers through the thin white walls and it made them sob harder, unable to forget the darkness and silence that greeted them.

No cheers, no sea of lights, no sounds but their own voices shouting into the arena. Taeyeon takes the silence as a sign of failure, her failure. She’s failed her members as a leader, she’s failed her company as an idol, and she’s failed herself as being the image that is Taeyeon.

A hand finds its way to hers, gripping it tightly. Looking to her left, she sees Jessica sitting by her with ice in her eyes. There are no tears nor any signs of pain on her face and Taeyeon briefly marvels at the strength her fellow member exudes.

“You did good.” Jessica’s tired voice whispers, clear as day. It’s a simple sentence, one that has been spoken many times after every performance, but tonight it cracks through Taeyeon’s already shattered heart and pierces her. A single tear falls and Taeyeon gives Jessica’s hand a squeeze.

She’d never say it out loud, but she thinks that Jessica understands that she’s crying for the both of them.

_Sica_

Returning to their hotel room after their last performance, the members all but collapse onto their beds. Taeyeon fights the sleep in their eyes as she gently reminds Yuri and Sunny to remove their makeup, making sure to pick up their shoes to set them to the side. There're a few grumbles and groans as the members stumble over each other but with the help of Taeyeon and their maknae, they manage to get everyone out of their outfits and into some comfortable sleepwear. 

Stifling a yawn, she pats Seohyun on the shoulder and tells her to get some rest before returning to her own room, shaking her head when she hears Yoona ordering room service as she passes her and Sooyoung’s room. She almost considers telling Yoona to go to sleep but decides that the girl has earned it and retires to her room. As expected, Tiffany was already out cold, sprawled out on her bed and letting out soft snores. Chuckling to herself, Taeyeon slips out of her outfit into an old t-shirt and sweats and turns to look at the night sky of Bangkok. A quick glance at her phone tells her that it’s early in the morning and she should really get some rest but she doesn’t, content with watching the stars shine. 

A ping brings her back from her thoughts, her phone lights up with a notification. A quick glance reveals it to be a message from Jessica and she raises an eyebrow, picking the phone up to see what the message is.

‘ _Get some sleep’_ is all the message says, making Taeyeon smile a little. She quickly sends a reply back when she sees the bubbles appear.

 _‘I could say the same about you.’_ There’s a pause and Taeyeon assumes that Jessica fell asleep before she hears a ping and a message pops up: _‘I am going to sleep but I know that unless someone nags you, you’ll be up all night.’_

_‘Ah.’_

The bubble appears and disappears as Taeyeon waits for a reply from Jessica. A minute later just as Taeyeon starts to make herself comfortable a message pops up: _‘you did good.’_ The sentence eases the weight on her shoulders and allows her to breathe just a little bit easier. Of course, she saw the sea of pink in the arena tonight but it felt oddly comforting to have Jessica soothe her fears and worries born from seeing the dreaded ocean four years ago. Taeyeon wonders if she too felt the relief of seeing the pink ocean tonight and imagines the soft curve of her lips and the glint in her fellow member’s eyes, not the practiced picture-perfect smile nor the dull spark that the public’s so used to seeing.

‘ _Sica.’_ It’s the first time Taeyeon’s typed out the familiar nickname the other members gave Jessica. It’s odd and unfamiliar to her but it’s warm and comfortable and not Jessica of Girl’s Generation. The leader waits with her fingers hovering over the keys as she gets no response before a ‘ _hm?’_

A smile tugs on her lips as she imagines Jessica -Sica- staring at her phone with sleepy eyes but still impatient to hear what Taeyeon has to say. Taeyeon types her next sentence with quiet affection.

‘ _It was pink tonight.’_

She doesn’t get a reply but that’s okay with her. She knows Sica understands.

_Sooyeon_

“Sooyeon.”

It wasn’t a name that Jessica was used to hearing when someone needed her attention and it was usually met with a brief noise of confusion.

Everyone calls Jessica by some form of nickname, from Tiffany's enthusiastic ‘Jessi’ to Seohyun’s quiet ‘Sica-unnie’ but she’s the only one who gets to call Jessica ‘Sooyeon’.

Maybe it’s the fact that Taeyeon seems to say the name with the softest caresses and smallest smiles. She holds the name like it’s porcelain and is the most addicting thing she’s ever tasted. Maybe it’s the way Taeyeon’s shoulders slump and her face loses all the harsh edges it has from years of being in the spotlight but whatever it was, whenever she hears her name spill from those lips, she finds herself rewarding her leader with a barely-there but genuine smile.

Taeyeon is secretly proud of the fact that only she can bring this side of Jessica out and wants nothing more than to selfishly make it hers alone. The rest of the world can have the graceful and strong Jessica and her members can have the cheeky and mischievous Sica, but only she can have Sooyeon.

So she stands by the door, watching Jessica work on her designs with the utmost concentration and care, and whispers the name.

“Sooyeon.”

_“This number cannot be reached at this time…”_

Tokyo Dome. There’s tension in the air as staff rush past them and stylists fumble with their outfits. Sunny and Hyoyeon can barely look at her while Tiffany looks ready to collapse, barely holding onto Sooyoung and Seohyun. Yoona and Yuri distract themselves with meaningless conversation, glancing at their leader once in a while.

The chair next to Taeyeon was empty.

There’s a lingering pain in her heart as she sees the varying expressions on the other members' faces (she doesn’t miss the thinly veiled anger aimed at her for not stopping what happened, for not being strong) and has to remind them of the concert, with thousands of fans waiting for them. This time there’s no exciting chant or last-minute speeches, only the smallest of nods and hurried steps out the room as if they couldn’t stand the thought of being in the same room as each other.

She doesn’t blame them.

Even with the pink ocean and the crowd singing along with them, each song is incomplete and rough as they’re forced to sing lines that don’t belong to them, their hearts cracking when they don’t hear the melodic voice of Jessica by their side. It’s all wrong and she wants nothing more than to stop this concert, to stop the pain, but she doesn’t. Taeyeon continues to sing, stitching her already fragile heart back together with tears and bitterness.

By the time their debut song is playing, none of the remaining eight bother hiding how broken they are and simply let themselves cry through the song. They miss a note here and there and Sunny no longer has the strength to continue, but none of that matters anymore. There’s a space in their circle (in their hearts), a space once occupied by someone who meant the world to them and it simply _hurts_.

Their circle closes and they stare at each other, holding on to the last strings of the performance and each other.

 _We’re almost there,_ Taeyeon could almost imagine her saying, _be strong. I’m here with you all._ She desperately hopes her members could hear them too.

They finish the dream of Tokyo Dome with nothing but two roads going opposite directions and not as the group that began the dream. 

They finish as eight.

~~_Jessica_ ~~

It never got better after Tokyo Dome. Sooyoung grips Sunny’s hand as the crowd chants _her_ name, over and over and it does nothing for them. Some of them, like Tiffany and Yuri, have grown numb to the pain, and some, like Sooyoung and Yoona, take to protecting their most sensitive members, piecing them back together each time they break (they never comment on the fact that each time they put the pieces back, the final product is more cracked than before).

They don’t talk about it as they finish their performance, trying to leave it all behind once they’re stumbling into the van. Sunny immediately blocks them out, despite Yoona and Sooyoung fooling around to try and lighten the mood up. Their maknae forces a smile and reluctantly joins in on the fun and Taeyeon has to avert her eyes. She’d never tell her members but sometimes she sees _her_ in all of them, from Seohyun’s sharp eyes to even Sunny’s nonchalance. Maybe it was the fact that only a few hours ago the crowd was screaming her name, but Taeyeon suddenly felt sick to her stomach, pushing Hyoyeon away when the dance noticed how pale she was.

In the safety of her room, the idol rummages through her bag for her phone, tossing items carelessly in search of the device. She thinks someone is knocking on her door but she blocks it out in favor of holding her phone in her hands and feverishly swiping through her contacts until it lands on _her_ number. In a fit of emotion, Taeyeon had changed the contact name to something else, something less personal but familiar all the same. Her thumb lingers on the call button and she thinks of how selfish and desperate she must be to do this but she wants to hear those words again, she wants to hear her voice again.

Just as she was about to press the call button, she feels a hand on her shoulder and looks back to see Tiffany.

“Taeyeon.” The mist dissipates from her mind and she finally sees what’s in front of her: the looks of pity and anguish of her members, the yellow paint peeling from the walls, the empty half of the room, the dust-

Ah. This isn’t her room.

“I-”

Tiffany shushes her, wrapping her arms around Taeyeon and whispering, “it’s okay. We did good. We did good.” It’s not the same as _her_ voice and Taeyeon knows Tiffany’s merely saying it to ease her own heavy heart, but she takes what little comfort she can get and returns the embrace. It’s not the same, but it’s enough for now.

_Jessica_

Taeyeon sees the article on her feed and she has to pause, startling her dog when she stiffened up.

_Jessica Jung’s debut novel Shine is a bestseller._

Years ago she wouldn’t have hesitated to call Jessica up and congratulate her but that was years ago and even though she still has her number saved (Taeyeon doesn’t think she changed it), it makes her hesitate.

It took her years to finally come to terms with what happened and even more years to stop thinking about her after every performance that she feels it’s almost unfair how a simple headline would make her stop in her tracks. If she was being honest, it almost makes her laugh.

A part of her wants to text Jessica, to tell her about what’s been going on, about how the members are moving on to new things, about Hyoyeon’s interest in being a DJ, about Tiffany’s move back to the States, about their maknae all grown up. There’s just so much to tell her, so much that Taeyeon _wants_ to tell her.

Without much thought, she presses on Jessica’s number and the screen shows the last conversation that she had with the former member. The excessive emojis and occasion English makes her smile just a bit as the memories slowly return, memories of a simpler time. Her hands slowly type out three words before she deletes them, mentally scolding herself for doing it.

Still… She types the words a second before deleting them, shaking her head, and absentmindedly petting Zero. Questions linger in her mind as she stares at the screen, at the conversations she’s had with Jessica over the years.

 _‘Hey, this is Jessica Jung.’_ Jung Jessica.

 _‘We’ll do better next time.’_ Jessica.

 _‘We did good.’_ Sica

 _‘What do you think? Not bad for my first time right?’_ Sooyeon.

 _‘Do you… Do you think I did good?’_ Sooyeon.

Sooyeon.

‘ _You did good.’_

She holds her breath as the text is sent and for a moment she thinks she sees a bubble from the other person but it’s gone when she blinks. She doesn’t get a reply but she’s okay with that, allowing herself a moment to smile and finally rest.

Taeyeon knows that Jessica understands.


End file.
